


An Exchange of Gifts and Other Things

by ungoodpirate



Series: Putting The Puzzle Back Together [5]
Category: Glee
Genre: Gen, Hiatus fic, M/M, Post-The Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-27
Updated: 2012-10-27
Packaged: 2017-11-17 02:53:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/546861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ungoodpirate/pseuds/ungoodpirate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I found it in the back of this dusty old record store my first week in New York. I kept it as a surprise gift for your first visit, but then, well…”</p><p>“Well,” Blaine repeats and it is full of regrets and embarrassment. And other things, layered, and Kurt doesn’t dare to try and to peel them back and examine.<br/>---<br/>Unplanned, still separated after Blaine’s cheating, Kurt and Blaine exchange Christmas gifts in Kurt’s bedroom. In the moment, unintended things occur.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Exchange of Gifts and Other Things

**Author's Note:**

> This is a part of my getting Kurt and Blaine back together after the break up series. It is not necessary to read them all to understand this, but it is fun if you can. This is my favorite part so far. 
> 
> Also, present tense happened. I'm really glad it did, because I like it and the flow it created, but it is inconsistent with the tenses of the other parts, but, whatever.

It is the day after Christmas, and Kurt was alone in the house. He decides to spend the alone time watching the new Grey’s Anatomy DVDs Finn (the boy was learning) gifted him the day before on the big screen of the living room when no one else is around to compete for it. It is between episodes that he hears footsteps on the front porch. 

He suspects perhaps the mailman, and remembers then Carol telling him the doorbell was broken, so he gets up from the couch to investigate. When he opens the door, however, it is Blaine leaning over to put a parcel on the doormat. 

Blaine blinks up at him. He has a knit beanie pulled down to his eyebrows, but Kurt can still see the tiny shift of the widening of his eyes. 

“Hi,” Kurt says.

Blaine stands up straight, the package, wrapped in paper with a cartoon-ish Santa print, in his hands. 

“I have, um, I have a Christmas present. I was just going to leave it on the doorstep.” He adds the last sentence quickly, like a sure explanation that he hadn’t come to cajole Kurt into seeing him. 

“For me?” Kurt says, even though that part is obvious. 

Blaine nods and hands it over. Kurt takes it wordlessly. He stares at the small ribbon bow on top. 

Blaine runs his hands anxiously over the sides of his thighs then slides them into his pockets. He rocks his weight onto his toes. “I know you probably didn’t want anything from me, but I started it before we… anyway, I finished it and thought you should have it, so…”

“I have something for you too,” Kurt says, and he almost can’t believe he said it, because it had rushed out of him a thought, an understanding, and a vocalization like a flash. But the way Blaine’s face changes, lights up, with surprise, he doesn’t regret it. 

He waves Blaine inside the house, but is halfway across the living room before Blaine steps over the threshold and closes the door behind him. 

“It’s in my room,” Kurt says, leading the way. Blaine follows several steps behind like he was unfamiliar with the house, like he hadn’t been in it countless times before. Kurt supposed that Blaine didn’t really have that permission anymore, to move about it and in it and through it like he once had. 

He closes the door of his bedroom behind Blaine; he doesn’t know why. Habit, maybe. 

“You can sit,” Kurt says, another in the series of directions he is giving Blaine and Blaine follows silently. He tucks the gift Blaine gave him in the crook of his elbow as he riffles through his closet to find something he had unpacked from his luggage back at Thanksgiving. Something he had removed to decontaminate his New York apartment of Blaine. 

“I don’t have it wrapped,” Kurt says as he hands over a record in its cardboard sleeve. 

Blaine takes it with the tips of his fingers, holding the bottom corners, staring at it kind of reverently. “Roxy Music on vinyl?” he says, shocked but with a pleased smiles curling onto his lips. 

“I found it in the back of this dusty old record store my first week in New York. I kept it as a surprise gift for your first visit, but then, well…”

“Well,” Blaine repeats and it is full of regrets and embarrassment. And other things, layered, and Kurt doesn’t dare to try and to peel them back and examine. He’s not ready to feel that much for Blaine, who was the one who betrayed Kurt after all.

“I love it,” Blaine says, and he holds the record in his lap. He glances at the gift in Kurt’s arms. “You gonna open yours?”

Kurt sits down next to – but not touching – Blaine on the end of the bed and tears the tops of the paper away to reveal a beanie – not unlike the one Blaine was still wearing – and folded scarf, both in powder blue with the occasional stripe of white. 

“I made them,” Blaine says, and it really coming across as a nervous ramble. “Thought I’d continue the tradition of homemade gifts, and like I said, I started way back because I needed to learn how to.”

“You learned to knit for me?” Kurt asks.

“Crochet, but, yeah.” Blaine shrugs, like trying to make it not a big deal. “I know it’s probably nothing compared to what you see at Vogue every day, but I thought you should have it. I mean, you can throw it in the back of your closet and never wear it ever. I’m okay with that, but I really wanted you –”

“Blaine,” Kurt interrupts, firmly. “Shut up.” 

The gifts are brushed from their laps as Kurt pulls Blaine in for an open-mouthed kiss. Blaine reciprocates easily, if a little stunted, nervous. Kurt pushes him back on the bed and tugging open his coat. Blaine moans as Kurt runs his hands over his chest. 

Blaine’s hands ghost over top of Kurt, like he is afraid to touch, as if not allowed. To correct this, Kurt snatches one of Blaine’s wrists and settles his hand over where it had been hovering. In this case, the curve of Kurt’s thigh. 

Neither of them says a word. They just touch and press and feel. They gasp and shudder, but they don’t speak. Because speaking would break the perfect silence where they don’t have to think or regret or rationalize. Kurt sucks on Blaine’s bottom lip; Blaine glides his hands up under Kurt’s shirt to feel the skin of his back and rack his blunt fingernails lightly down his spine. 

They are both hard. They rut against each other with a crazed desperation, disregarding the restriction of their jeans. They move and move, still kissing and touching all over. Blaine comes first, then a half minute later, Kurt. 

Kurt collapses onto Blaine, forehead on his shoulder, catching his breath. He rolls off to the side, staring up at the ceiling. Blaine is his mirror reflection. 

Through all the physical sensations of good, something course and dirty fills Kurt’s spirits. Being intimate with Blaine had never felt that way before. He can feel the burn of Blaine’s eyes on him, even as the other boy struggles to be subtle. Kurt rolls further on the bed, putting his back to Blaine.

“Maybe I should go?” Blaine suggests into the sound of nothing but their heavy breathing. 

Kurt nods into the pillow and Blaine must have seen, for there is a shift and creak in the bed as Blaine climbs off. There are some awkward, uneven footsteps around the room as Kurt doesn’t look, but hears the door open and close. He listens hard for the creaking steps and the bang shut of the front door. 

Well on his own, he gets up to change his pants and underwear. He picks up the hat and scarf from the floor, running his fingers over the cashmere-soft yarn, discarding the paper. He gets through another episode of Grey’s Anatomy before he calls Rachel.

Rachel picks up after the second ring with a cheery “Hello.” Neither of them has talked all that much since they were both home for Christmas (although Rachel didn’t really celebrate Christmas; NYADA was closed and she wanted to visit her dads). They love each other, but living in an open plan apartment together, they needed a break. 

“Rachel, I did something bad,” he groans over the phone, rubbing at his brow. “Blaine came over and –”

“Oh my god, you two had sex,” she says fast, barely a break between her words.

“Not exactly, but yes… we both got off, but we were both fully clothed the whole time.” 

“And...?” Rachel prompts. “What happened after?”

“He left,” Kurt says and, yes, it sounds bad to his ears. 

“You two didn’t like talk about what it meant?” Rachel asks.

“No… I initiated it, and then after I sort of freezed up.”

Rachel sighs heavily and over the phone it gets translated into a lot of static. “You can’t do that to him,” she says.

“What?” Kurt says, confused.

“Look, I’ve been keeping in touch with Blaine –”

“I know. You’re not that subtle.”

“And he has been absolutely contrite and miserable over what he did, and that he hurt you. And well,” Rachel sighs again. “I know he hurt you first, but you can’t play with his emotions like this.”

“I didn’t intend,” Kurt starts, a snap to his tone, but Rachel cuts him off, a little loud, a little angry.

“I know you didn’t intend to, but you did. And that has consequences. Are you planning to get back together with him?”

“No,” Kurt says, and it wasn’t even a question. As much as he had needed and wanted Blaine in the moment, the moment where he was being so sweet and thoughtful and nervous and just him, a big part of Kurt was still folded off from him. He cares about Blaine and he is attracted to him, and in that slice of time and space, being with him, getting off with him, had seemed appropriate. It could have been a moment of healing, an exchange of gifts like friends, an invitation into a house that had become foreign, but it had been tainted. Kurt had tainted it. 

“Then you need to tell him,” Rachel says over the phone. “He is so desperate for anything from you, Kurt, but you can’t lead him on and you can’t use him as your fuck buddy.”

“Rachel!” Kurt says, scandalized, because he never heard her use language like that before. Then, “Can you tell him for me?”

“No!” she says. “This is between you and him.”

“Why not, you did it before?” He is almost whining.

“Before, he was the one to hurt you, so that was fair game. You’re the one who started this, so it is for you to do.”

She hangs up then and Kurt scoffs at the rudeness. Rachel texts him a minute later with a proper goodbye and a half-said apology. The message ends with “but really, you need to talk to Blaine and clear this us up. Sooner the better.”

It takes him until after a family dinner and past his moisturizing routine to make up the nerve to call. He knows if he sleeps on it, it will take him all day again tomorrow to work up the nerve yet again. 

The phone didn’t get through one entire ring before it is answered. 

“Kurt,” Kurt hears breathed by Blaine and so much is punched into the single pronunciation of his name, he can’t dissect it all, but it adds to the rolling uncomfortableness of his gut. 

“Hey, Blaine,” Kurt says, resigned. “Look, about earlier…”

“It doesn’t have to mean anything if you don’t want it to,” Blaine says quickly, almost rehearsed, like this is what he was waiting to hear and was prepared for the splat. “Or it can mean what you want it to. I’m not picky.” 

Rachel was right, and it hurts to hear Blaine like this, willing to take scraps. 

“It was… I’m not going to say an accident. It was unintended, in the moment. And what it doesn’t mean is that we’re back together.”

“Okay,” he hears Blaine say, quiet. 

“And I’m sorry if I played with your feelings,” he adds on.

“It’s okay.” Kurt can practically hear the shrug in Blaine’s voice. “I deserve it.”

“No,” Kurt says, and it is the first thing he is sure about all day. “You don’t deserve retribution. It’s not how these things work.”

“It’d probably make me feel better,” Blaine says.

“Look, Blaine,” Kurt says, “I may not be ready to forgive you, but please figure out how to forgive yourself. You can’t sacrifice your well being for me.”

There is no response.

“Blaine?” Kurt asks. 

“I’ve got to go.” It was the second time Kurt got hung up on that day, but this time there was no follow up text, no resolution.


End file.
